The Dish

A reader writes:

Perhaps there is a reason why political commentators should refrain from, or perhaps even stay fully clear of, theological speculation.  They suck at it.  When Glenn Beck does it, I struggle to be surprised.  When you do, I cringe.  You define “social justice” from a political perspective, and miss the point entirely.  A Christian (Biblical) understanding of social justice is EXACTLY about redistribution of wealth. 

Read Isaiah at any length, and notice the wrath against the wealthy simply because they dare to be rich while others are poor.  When Jesus quotes Isaiah in his first sermon in Luke 4, the “day of the Lord’s favor” he highlights (aka the Old Testament law of Jubilee) is all about taking from the wealthy and returning to society.  It is not about providing a “safety net” for the poor, no more than warm feelings of doing good brought on by the occasional (but not too hurtful) work of charity.  It is about creating on Earth a shadow of the freedom from greed that defines heaven. That these concepts do not fit in with classic definitions of good capitalism is precisely what makes them a witness to the God who judges not by works but by Grace.

There is lots of chatter this morning about "the slaughter rule," "deem and pass," and reconciliation. Ezra Klein sums up the very inside the beltway controversy:

The conservative case against "Deem and Pass" is getting very complex, very fast. Yesterday, the argument was that it was flatly unconstitutional. But it turns out that Republicans used Deem and Pass dozens of times while they were in power. So today's furor is that Nancy Pelosi and Louise Slaughter joined Public Citizen in a lawsuit arguing that a bill that George W. Bush signed was invalid because Deem and Pass is unconstitutional. But the court ruled against Public Citizen, Pelosi and Slaughter. Deem and Pass, well, passed. And now Democrats are using it, too.

Joshua Tucker's reading of the above graph:

As a political scientist, I was less interested in the overall support levels (which apparently have already shifted a bit in favor of passing reforms since these polls were taken), but rather in the difference between the two graphs. According to Gallup, respondents were first asked if they favored passing the health care bill, and then asked if they favored passing it using reconcilliation. The “process” in this case apparently cost about 3% points of support. So it is not irrelevant, but hardly a game changer in terms of public opinion

From Military.com:

Could parachute-wearing bears sniff out Osama bin Laden?

That's one suggestion the Pentagon has received from someone who noted, quite correctly, that a bear's sense of smell is much more powerful than a bloodhound's.

"Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas [bin Laden] might be," the innovator wrote. "Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing."

The bears-in-the-air idea, and scores of others, came from people who clicked on the "contact us" button on the Defense Department's Web site, which allows the general public to ask questions or make suggestions.

Not that the Pentagon needs any particular help in the idea department. Not long ago, for example, the agency spent $2 million to find out whether honey bees could be relied upon to sniff out roadside bombs.

The Big Picture provides plenty of opportunity for caption fun. Wonkette has a little.

A reader writes:

As a young boy I attended a Catholic elementary school.  In the confessional I struggled with my sexual urges and same-sex attractions.   When I asked my priest why this was happening to me, I was told that God gives all of us challenges in life and this was my cross to bear.  The path to salvation for boys like me, was to pledge my life to God by becoming a celibate priest.   He recommended that I attend a pre-seminary for my high school education. 

I attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago for my freshman year.  Struggling with same sex attractions, I was thrust into an all-male environment.  As part of our physical education, we took swimming lessons in the school’s pool where none of us wore swimsuits.  The coach told us that it was against school policy.  The pool was barely large enough for a class of 40 boys to fit.  Can you imagine a school today putting 40 naked boys in a pool?

Even at the age of 14 I realized that the church’s stance on celibacy was either a lie or insane.  When I raised that question with my confessor, he suggested that maybe I didn’t have the true calling.  Wisely, I dropped out and enrolled in public school the following year. 

The point is, the Catholic Church targeted young gay boys as potential priests.  The policy of recruiting 14-year-old boys stunted the young boy’s psycho-sexual development, and now they are shocked when adult priests behave like they are 14 year old boys.  They deserve all the criticism.

Scientists have discovered a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish in a place thought uninhabitable:

The video is likely to inspire experts to rethink what they know about life in harsh environments. And it has scientists musing that if shrimp-like creatures can frolic below 600 feet of Antarctic ice in subfreezing dark water, what about other hostile places? What about Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter?

"You can’t have rapprochement with Muslims while condoning the steady Israeli appropriation of the physical space for Palestine. You can’t have that rapprochement if U.S. policy is susceptible to the whims of Shas, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party in Netanyahu’s coalition that runs the Interior Ministry and announced the Biden-baiting measure.

The Israeli right, whether religious or secular, has no interest in a two-state peace.

I had lunch the other day with Ron Nachman, the mayor of Ariel, one of the largest West Bank settlements. He told me breezily that there “can be no Palestinian state,” and that “Israel and Jordan should divide the land.” I liked his frankness. It clarifies things.

It’s time for equal frankness from Netanyahu. Do “the vital interests of the state of Israel” include continued building in East Jerusalem and the steady takeover of the West Bank, or does his embrace of the airy phrase, “two states for two peoples,” have more than camouflage meaning?" – Roger Cohen, clarifying things.

It's so weird watching hawkish politicians who are usually castigating Obama for weakness with respect to foreign leaders suddenly turning around and accusing the president of … standing up for America's interests:

Lieberman questioned why the initial flap was allowed to continue on the Sunday talk shows. Singling out David Axelrod, he noted that calling it an “affront” serves nobody’s interests. From there, McCain said the escalation “may be giving the impression to the wrong people, the neighbors of Israel have stated time after time that they are bent on Israel’s extinction.”

McCain and Lieberman previously went to Israel itself to undermine the foreign policy of the US president, by stating that they would bar any attempt to use aid or loan guarantee leverage against Israel in its continuing aggressive settlement policy. The Washington Post puts almost all the blame for the tension on – surprise! – the US. In fact, they use the term "bludgeon" to describe the president's understandable reaction to Netanyahu's insult of Biden:

A larger question concerns Mr. Obama's quickness to bludgeon the Israeli government. He is not the first president to do so; in fact, he is not even the first to be hard on Mr. Netanyahu. But tough tactics don't always work: Last year Israelis rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu, while Mr. Obama's poll ratings in Israel plunged to the single digits. The president is perceived by many Israelis as making unprecedented demands on their government while overlooking the intransigence of Palestinian and Arab leaders. If this episode reinforces that image, Mr. Obama will accomplish the opposite of what he intends.

In other words, the success or failure of the US president's foreign policy in the Middle East should be measured by his ratings in Israel, rather than his determination of the national interest of the United States. How on earth did this get so upside down?

Notice that in this case, Israel means a government beholden to the most extreme elements of the Israeli religious right. The Republican party is also lining up behind the Netanyahu government against the president of the United States:

America's first post-partisan President anyone? Maybe it was George H.W. Bush. He managed to unite everyone against him, at least on Israel. Unfortunately, most of the Democrats are putting party over principle in this dispute – at least so far.

Eric Cantor calls asking the Israeli government to stop provocative settlement building as a way to build trust toward peace negotiations is "beyond irresponsible". He won't even condemn the planned Jerusalem settlement.

(Photo: Tim Sloan/Getty.)

AEI's Norman Ornstein and Brookings' Thomas Mann point out several parallels between now and the last time the Democrats controlled Congress and the White House:

To be sure, there were many reasons for Democrats’ massive losses in 1994, including scandals and angry gun owners. But the failure to fulfill their responsibility for governing contributed mightily to the debacle. That was the conclusion of pollsters from both parties in the aftermath of the November contests. Two weeks after the election, Republican pollster Bill McInturff found that “one of the most important predicates for Republican success was not having health care pass.” He noted that the collapse of the plan reinforced voters’ belief that Washington was in a dysfunctional state of gridlock.

Bernstein nods his head. The president says: "We're going to make this happen."

Mark Blumenthal wants to do away with the census:

Does it make sense to spend $14.7 billion (the estimated cost of the 2010 Census) every 10 years trying to get each and every household in the United States to fill out a census form? Probably not. There is a more efficient alternative, but it requires the use of statistical sampling and, presumably, bipartisan support for a constitutional amendment to update the meaning of "enumerate." Too bad the same conservatives who complain about the cost of the census also reject that idea out of hand.